Escape Pod (original design)

I have some holidays over the Christmas period so I started a small project which I hope to largely complete
before returning to work in the second week of January 2016.

Some time ago I volunteered to make a CG spaceship and do a couple of shots for a friends sci fi short film.
Although I designed and started to build a CG model, I changed jobs and moved across the country and so
in the end was not able to contribute to the project.
Many years later, I again volunteered to resurrect the project and attempt to finish of what I had started.
5 years later finding that for me CG spaceships are really not that motivating I thought about making a
real model spaceship instead, an infinitely more appealing task...

The film requires an escape pod that leaves a dangerously disabled mothership.
I have few old spaceship models that could be pressed into service as the mothership but I need to build an
escape pod of some description.
I had a rummage around in my plastic junk boxes and pulled out an old dustbuster which I have had lying
around for years and a couple of desktop pen and pencil caddies I purchased a year or so ago.

I had started laying out the shapes, cutting the front of the dustbuster in half and spreading them apart
when my wife walked in and said " that is always going to look like what it is... a dustbuster"
I am not so easily dissuaded... to me the dustbuster always looked like part of a spaceship and never a houshold appliance.
I continued on.

This is the result so far after about 3 days of fiddling about, using the previously mentioned plastic household items
and some 1.5mm ABS sheet.









Again I am employing a 3/8 furniture leg plate as a mountng system and 12 volt led downlights for the thruster light effect.
The lights locate into a circular hole in the back of the caddie thrust tunnels and are secured with a short length of
aluminium angle with two rectangular holes cut into it which mate with the rectangular stubs of the lamps.
Ceramic downlight connectors plug into the lamps.
All this is accessible through a hatch in the top of the model.
A couple of magnetic cabinet catches at the front corners along with a styrene tab at the rear is proposed for the
hatch retaining system.









Some cheap action figures from Target which scale out to 1/16th will populate the cockpit which is accessible
through another hatch comprising the window section.
Only one figure will be required for the short film so they will be made to be removable.



The clear acrylic sheet for the window was heated with a heat gun until slightly soft and pressed onto a wooden
form that matches the curvature of the hull shape using a cloth pad.
The window strut arrangement was drawn up in CAD using DraftSight and printed out full size with all the corner
radius centres marked for drilling with a step drill to 10mm.
The rest is then cut away with a sharp olfa knife and cleaned up with some minor sanding.
A method for securing this hatch is yet to be determined.



More soon...

Very cool, looks like the big brother to the shuttlepods from star trek Enterprise.

"shuttlepod" That is a better description of what this is, its bigger than an escape pod.

I love this design so much

Here's the Enterprise Shuttlepods for inspiration.

That is an awesome design, and a very clever use of common items . I love it! I always thought the dustbuster looked like a spaceship too

Very cool, design, mung!

Too cool!

R/ Robert

Loving it so far!

Love it! Sometimes as we focus so much on kit sources that we forget there are other possibilities, especially for the main body. Martin Bower has made ships out of vacuum cleaners.

Reminds me, I need to finish my toothpaste pump ship...

....... Now, this has an interesting feature, a dust jacket. Books used to have these to protect the covers, of course that was before they had dust repellent paper. And if you're interested in dust, we have a quaint little piece from the 1980's, it's called a Dustbuster......

...Now they can be made into spaceships.....nice work.

I did do a rough thumbnail sketch after I had figured out the arrangement of shapes, before construction just
to set a direction to go in and later roughed out the cockpit window arrangement before I started the CAD layout.




I started the detailing the top and bottom of the engine section with various kit part nurnies.








In the thumbnail sketch you can also see a couple of canard winglets at the front and a rear wing which is what
I decided to tackle next.

First, using scrap cardboard, I tried out the wing, cutting and bending until I was happy with the general proportions.
I tried it backwards, forwards and in any possible position, finally deciding that the tips swept backwards looked best
as it complimented the shape made by the angle of the handle of the dustbuster.





I then made up a wooden former to heat and bend some 2mm styrene to form the wing.

The styrene is marked out from the cardboard template and clamped to the former with some welding clamps.
I always leave a generous allowance of extra plastic when heating and bending as the edges can slightly curl up
or warp and then the desired shape can be trimmed to size.

A sheet of metal ( in this case zinc, its what i had to hand) is used to shield the styrene that is to remain unbent
from the hot air from the heat gun.
A piece of flat wood is used to shield the styrene past the bend and the heat gun played across the bend area
untill the styrene starts to sag.
The flat piece of wood is then used to roll and flatten the softened styrene to the former.
I bent another piece of styrene over the first to get the next layer in the lamination that makes up the wing.









The two bent wing laminations were then glued together with an extra strip of 2mm styrene between the two at
the front giving the wing a thicker leading edge.
I had to cut a dart into the top layer at the bends to get the rear to pull together at the thinner rear end.
I then using more card board worked out the shape of the supports and laminated them out of three layers of
2mm styrene.














more soon...

Nice progress, where's the hatch?

Great design! I'm so looking forward to this build.

The hatch in fiction is the hatch in reality, the canopy windscreen would hinge up. You would walk up over the conveniently ramp shaped nose and step in. Upon planet fall the reverse procedure for exit. In emergency the whole screen can be blown off with explosive bolts.
I might add I am not going to hinge the canopy in actuality but it will be removable.

looks great...nice scratchbuilding work

looks real good:thumbsup

Dude that thing is inspired... Just know when to stop. If its inspired by Trek then you want it to be on the "clean" side if that makes sense. If its Star wars inspired greeblie the holy hell out of it. IF it your own thing - ignore all of us and be happy with it . I think it looks pretty cool.

Jedi Dade

It is, as is usual for me, my "own thing". I like the texture that kit part nurny detailing imparts especially when photographed. In my view you cant beat it for that chiaroscuro effect of light and shadow across a surface, so I tend to steer more towards "wars" than "trek". I felt it was the one major thing lacking in the Force awakens movie... there were no miniature spaceships that ignited flame in me like the original Star Wars did as a teenager. I'm afraid that CG spaceships just do not do it for me... not in the slightest, sigh!

Man that is awesome. Just don't forget to paint over the Hoover logo, Unless of course Hoover is the name of the mother ship, LOL. They do have a Dyson sphere, why not a Hoover space craft.